Surrounded By Thorns
by Woody2792
Summary: One-shot - Joseph's point of view. Set after he beats Linden up in the corridor. He is lying in the bed in the on-call room and his thoughts turn to Faye, and then Jac. Hints towards Jac/Joe


As he was lying in the bed in the on-call room, Joseph found himself surrounded by memories, haunted by past actions. He could feel the warmth of blood on his knuckles slowly cooling as it dried; whether it was his or Linden Cullen's he could not tell. The registrar steadied his breathing, calmed his heart down, and could feel every small change he made affecting his body. His muscles relaxed as he deliberately un-tensed, the slowing of his heart rate and breathing, the small shakes and tremors attacking his hands and arms as the adrenalin wore off. All he could think about was his wedding; the one time in his life that he was meant to be happy and care-free, the time you are meant to truly commit to one person – he had been willing to do anything for Faye, yet she had felt it was appropriate to kiss his best man, the best man that _she_ had chosen.

Slowly, his mind drifted back over their time together. One thing stood out from everything else – the number of chances he had given her. There was the business with her dead husband and his son; that had been cleared up, but only after a lot of hassle and hiding details. To be perfectly honest, he still was not a hundred percent clear on all of it... Then there was Archie. Joseph would not have treated Faye any differently had he known from the start that she had had a son; the fact that he was in a care-home did not alter how he viewed her. He had always hoped that he came across as someone who did not judge harshly, or without reason, but learning of Archie was a blow. Of course, there was the trip to South Africa that Linden had accompanied him on as well... that only came about because Faye ran away from the truth, did not ask for anyone's help, and as a result felt isolated.

And after their marriage, he had forgiven her the occasional not-wanting-to-show at family events; even he found them hard and tedious at times and he had grown up with it all. Then of course, there was this. The day she broke their marriage off was the day she got together with Linden Cullen. She could not even grant him a day or two's grace to try and get his head around it all. That was it, the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. This was the one misdemeanour he could _not_ forgive. So he had let himself go; for once, Joseph Byrne let his emotions run free and unluckily for Linden, the presiding one was anger. The feeling of beating the other doctor up was one which provided Joseph with so many conflicting feelings it was ridiculous. It seemed only right that linden felt a small fraction of the pain he himself was suffering and dealing with, and if that resulted in punches and slamming against the wall or trolleys, then so be it. Yet, as gratifying as it was, Joseph's moral compass was spinning wildly; he had been brought up better than that, and should have known better than to give in to such a trivial behaviour.

Without warning, his thoughts swerved over to one of the few times he had hit somebody – Jac. Immediately after back-handing her, he knew it had been the wrong thing to do, after all, you _never_ hit a girl. No matter that what she had done was a betrayal, something which had hurt him badly; striking a woman was wrong. Joseph knew that Jac sleeping with his father was a mistake for her – nothing productive came of it, and she had just been following what life had taught her. Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing and as much as he could explain away what he and she had done, he also knew that no other outcomes would have been possible. Jac was too ambitious than was good for her; being brought up in a care home instilled the notion of 'if you want it then you have to get it yourself', which is exactly what she had done. Joseph could not completely abolish her of wrong-doing, nor would he ever totally forgive her, but because he had more understanding of the situation now and his feelings were not so clouded by anger, he did not _hate_ her anymore. In fact, after the lockdown in the operating theatre, he had almost grown from dislike to apathetic. There were still the small things which annoyed him, and the mind games which he could not stand, yet somewhere within him, Jac had reopened a channel of feeling for her. What he had said that evening was true – he did not love Faye the same way he loved Jac, he never would, but that method of love was closed to him, lost when she had betrayed him. There were very few days when she did not cross his mind outside of work hours and business, and it still hurt him as much as the first day if not more. Given the means and a guarantee from her, he would certainly turn the clocks back, forget all that had happened and restart their relationship. He had used the existing hurt to hate Jac, he let it fester unnecessarily and it grew so much that he could not separate the cause from his feelings.

Being with Jac had been like playing with fire – exhilarating and dangerous, painful if mishandled though. On the other hand, being with Faye could be likened to playing with death; slowly creeping up on you, then knocking you down in one fell swoop. Jac had made one _huge_ mistake and regretted it; was that really so much worse than Faye's collective and continued ones?

**Hey there, I'm not MIA as some of you may be thinking – school exams are looming, and as much as I would love to make a living out of writing, I think that they are kinda necessary...**

**However, to cheer me up in these hard times, you could always let me know what you thought of this (and my other fics) in a review *hinthint***

**Thanks, as always**

**Woody2792x**


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